"What happens in Vegas"... Will likely end up on this site. Sorry, Las Vegas Chamber.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Need Any More Proof That Nevada Is a Blue State?

Last Tuesday, Dean Heller (barely) won election to a full term in the US Senate. Now remember this fact. It will actually help explain what he told The Reno Gazette-Journal over the weekend.

“I just think Obama relates better to the average person in the state of Nevada, as opposed to Romney,” Heller said.

“And I think at the end of the day, that candidates do matter and I think that was a reflection of (Election Day) and why Obama did so much better,” Heller said. “He is an excellent speaker. He understands what the average middle class family is thinking.”

Oh, and he also said this.

Many Nevada voters could relate to an “Obama-Heller ticket,” Heller said. When Heller first mentioned the need for Obama voters to also support him, the feedback was swift.

“In fact, after I made that comment, I had a number of people approach me and say they went for the Obama-Heller ticket,” Heller said.

Oh, really? Did he actually say that? This can't be the same Dean Heller who catered to every whim and fancy of the "tea party". So what happened?

Long story short: Heller became "Mr. 46%". And he now recognizes that Nevada is indeed a Blue State.

Jon Ralston could barely contain his disgust this morning. After all, Heller ran as Nevada's official "tea party" BFF for so long. Yet now, all of a sudden, he has so much respect for both President Obama and his new best friends in "The Obama-Heller Social Club"? Give Ralston a break.

He hates Obamacare, but he has Obamalove.

That's the latest incarnation of the ever-adaptable Dean Heller, the senator who just won election by 12,000 votes and now is marveling at the skills of the president who just won an electoral landlside.

Couldn't he have waited a decent interval to make it seem like a gradual evolution and not pure opportunism?

The maverick secretary of state who morphed into a far-rightie after Sharron Angle almost beat him six years ago and is now back to being Dean No Labels after another near-death experience is a clear case of nurture over nature.

What is his true nature? What does nurture him beyond the politics of the moment?

So at this point, who is Dean Heller? No really, who is he and what does he stand for? Does he stand by what he said last year and early this year, when he wanted to keep the radical right in his corner? Or is he genuinely interested in bipartisanship, cooperation, and (GASP!) moderation now?

Regardless of whether or not "The New & Improved Moderate, Post-partisan Dean Heller!" is for real, he again reveals the new political reality of Nevada. We are indeed a Blue State. And the only way Nevada Republicans can survive going forward is by adapting to this new reality. So will other Republicans follow Heller's example?

We'll have to wait and see... But in the mean time, don't be surprised if/when the "TEA" troops arise (again) to try to stop any kind of "moderation". Whatever happens in the Nevada GOP in the coming months, it won't go down without a fight.